The Nasa-SpaceX Crew-9 mission to bring back stranded astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore home to earth from the International Space Station (ISS) took off on Saturday, September 28 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.
What was meant to be a short stay for Williams and Wilmore at the ISS was extended by months as Boeing's Starliner spaceship which flew them to the ISS on June 6 developed helium leaks and thruster failures and was brought back crewless to earth on September 6 as it was thought to be too dangerous to have anyone on board.
Soon after the Crew-9 mission launch the Falcon 9 detached while the Dragon spacecraft flew on with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov for its rendezvous with the ISS.
There were just two astronauts aboard instead of the usual four because the other two seats are reserved for Williams and Wilmore for their return to Earth.
The spacecraft will dock with the ISS on September 29.
The Crew-9 mission is the ninth operational flight for SpaceX under Nasa's Commercial Space Programme for crew rotation to the ISS.
Backup plans are also ready for Williams and Wilmore to evacuate the Crew-8 Dragon capsule now docked with the ISS should there be an emergency on board.
The Crew 9 mission also ran two days late because of strong winds, rain and clouds due to Hurricane Helene.
The Falcon 9 blasted off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:17 pm (local time) on a northeast trajectory directly into the plane of the space station’s orbit.
However, after the successful launch of the Crew-9 mission, SpaceX announced on X that "Falcon 9’s second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn."
A deorbit burn is when a spacecraft's retrorockets are fired to bring it back to earth. An off-nominal deorbit burn means things don't go as planned and the rocket lands outside the targeted area.
"As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area," SpaceX said.
It added that it will "resume launching after we better understand root cause".
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